Episode 57: Alex Dietrich: Clouds, Critical Thinking, and UFOs

Interesting discussion about weather the object moved quickly out of sight, or weather it just vanished. Pretty important detail about the sighting, but I can also imagine it becomes hard to remember these details after 19 years.
Anyway, I appreciate the follow up.
 
A large balloon that bursts doesn't just vanish. It leaves behind the remnants of the structure that are still quite visible. I'm not convinced a popping balloon would appear to just entirely disappear as Fravor and Dietrich described.

 
Candy-O said:
A large balloon that bursts doesn't just vanish. It leaves behind the remnants of the structure that are still quite visible. I'm not convinced a popping balloon would appear to just entirely disappear as Fravor and Dietrich described.
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Wouldn't it depend on the size of the balloon, what gas it was filled with, and what caused it to pop? I'm not finding much info on what type of aerial target balloons the US Navy uses these days.

I found the site of a seller of naval target balloons and they have a blimp model and a sphere model for aerial ones. The sphere is around 6ft (1.8m) diameter and the blimp is between 10-30ft (3-9m) in length, and both can be filled with either Helium or Hydrogen (He,H²).

1693082839562.png1693082853183.png
http://www.geodatasys.com/navtgt.htm

If filled with Hydrogen and shot down, it could create a explosion where only tiny sheds are left which might not be very visible at the distance observed.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msq-nDjKr-k
 
I have a touch of doubt that her account is reliable considering her experience at the time, focus, AND the time that has passed, but I don't feel like there is anything in her account that makes me think she's making things up. She most likely saw something and that it seemed unusual. And she most likely believes the thing she saw departed so quickly that it did not appear to accelerate away. So, it's interesting. But the people who can hear these accounts and go right to physics-breaking-tech... they don't see eye-to-eye with me and I suppose never will.

I think it's more likely the pilots misunderstood what they were seeing, instead of it being some tech that defied the laws of gravity. And it definitely wasn't aliens from space until you can prove they exist and have visited us.
 
Initially I found it difficult to understand Dietrich's position on further attempting to recall events of that day, but then I put it into my own perspective. That would be like if someone asked me to talk about my first time behind the wheel of a car in Drivers Ed twenty years ago, and not just that, but about the make and model of a car I saw on the road and how it was driving. All I can really remember is how I felt that day, not finer details. Sure, what Dietrich saw above The Pacific was extraordinary, but... considering she was so green her brain may not have even cached and processed it as something extraordinary because she didn't have the experience to necessarily know it was that extraordinary. I think her notes and reports from the time are all that would be reasonably reliable.
 
AdmiralKird said:
Initially I found it difficult to understand Dietrich's position on further attempting to recall events of that day, but then I put it into my own perspective. That would be like if someone asked me to talk about my first time behind the wheel of a car in Drivers Ed twenty years ago, and not just that, but about the make and model of a car I saw on the road and how it was driving. All I can really remember is how I felt that day, not finer details. Sure, what Dietrich saw above The Pacific was extraordinary, but... considering she was so green her brain may not have even cached and processed it as something extraordinary because she didn't have the experience to necessarily know it was that extraordinary. I think her notes and reports from the time are all that would be reasonably reliable.
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Agreed. Also, the brain tends to fill in the gaps later on, with possibly false information.
 
jackfrostvc said:
@Mick West

Did you ask her the million dollar question:


1) Is she going to post her Tic Tac notes and drawings she made at the time?
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Another million question for me is, how come they describe seeing appendages under the object, in the higher-resolution version of FLIR1 they saw at debrief?

If they could see that level of details, they could have clearly recognized a F-18 or other jet. I wish Alex was asked about this again because this is central. I personally think a weird experimental balloon with payload is more convincing than a distant plane, even if there are many problems with this hypothesis too.
 
MonkeeSage said:
Wouldn't it depend on the size of the balloon, what gas it was filled with, and what caused it to pop? I'm not finding much info on what type of aerial target balloons the US Navy uses these days.

I found the site of a seller of naval target balloons and they have a blimp model and a sphere model for aerial ones. The sphere is around 6ft (1.8m) diameter and the blimp is between 10-30ft (3-9m) in length, and both can be filled with either Helium or Hydrogen (He,H²).

1693082839562.png1693082853183.png
http://www.geodatasys.com/navtgt.htm

If filled with Hydrogen and shot down, it could create a explosion where only tiny sheds are left which might not be very visible at the distance observed.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msq-nDjKr-k
Click to expand...


Shot by what? There was nothing else in the vicinity. If there was another plane doing training in that exact same area, it would have been seen or detected ( and vice versa) and command would have informed the pilots that another detachment was in the vicinity training. And the object was white, not red or yellow etc.

And it needed to be fairly large to be seen from the 10-20,000 foot altitude that the planes were at when Fravor spotted the object. In fact one of the supposed "issues" with Fravor's statement is that a 40ft white object would be too small to be seen in the first place. A smaller object would be even harder to see.

When Fravor stated the object shot off, he was considerably closer than the initial spotting distance. Some sort of drone would not be remotely capable of leaving the scene in an instant. Even if Fravor made some sort of parallax error, both planes would notice that that the object did not leave ultimately leave the vicinity. I'd argue a popping balloon would likely be visible as such. Why it happen to burst at the exact time Fravor was intercepting it is a bit convenient timing.

But then again this entire incident is a series of 1 in a million circumstances stacked together, such as a radar bug showing strange objects at the same time an object was picked up on radar that pointed to where an unidentified submarine was creating white water and releasing some sort of drone or balloon that bounced erratically and then popped when Fravor came closer. And right after it popped, another radar bug reported a hit at the CAP point 60 miles away. And then when another pilot went to that exact location, he spotted a distant (civilian?) plane that was not transponding, and mistook it for the tic tac as well. Truly a remarkable series of unlikely events!
 
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Ravi said:
Agreed. Also, the brain tends to fill in the gaps later on, with possibly false information.
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which she seems acutely aware of. so even if she says now "i didn't see it move away at all"..that too could be a reconstruction her brain made after the fact. (which she sort of did say by using a bullet analogy instead of like a baseball game analogy).
 
I loved this interview for the lack of a better word.

Dietrich seems a very sensible person, unwilling to 'take sides' and very open to learning about the skeptical approach as well.

Perhaps a little too much worried about being perceived as either ufologist or skeptic which she mistakes for 'anti-ufologist'. I guess it's understandable not wanting to be hated by any group although for me being hated for a sincere viewpoint is never a reason for me to accept it, reject it or to talk about it.

For me the most interesting bit was Dietrich using a very pragmatist argument for why she's really not that interested in whether or not we have recovered alien ships. @Mick West of course said it would be such a huge discovery as to be a veritable turning point in history and science. I'd call Mick's viewpoint the issue-centric perspective, typical of us geeky males. A type of an academic and aloof fascination about the world. But from a more people-centric and pragmatic perspective, what's far more relevant is how does such a discovery affect human lives, survival, livelihoods, relationships, security et cetera on our planet. If it has no bearing on such real things of everyday import as it seems to not have had under the assumption we've recovered such crafts, then it's utterly irrelevant to her.

I really appreciate her people-centric pragmatism even if I don't think it should be the only important consideration in the debate.
 
From a purely technical standpoint I'd be interested in her take on ATFLIR operation if she ever used it. But it seems even pilots are not really sure how it works and I'll bet they are not sure what they can/can't say about it's operation.
 
Candy-O said:
There was nothing else in the vicinity. If there was another plane doing training in that exact same area, it would have been seen or detected ( and vice versa) and command would have informed the pilots that another detachment was in the vicinity training. And
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You would think so. Yet Kurth and Fravor were in almost the same place (above the 'water disturbance') at almost the same time, but neither of them saw the other, unless Kurth's plane was indeed the tic-tac, as some have suggested. And both central command (on the Princeton) and Kurth's onboard radar are said to have detected two low-level fighter jets approaching the area, whereas Fravor and Dietrich (by their own accounts) came in at high level. The two low-level jets are still unaccounted for. Fravor and Kurth were indeed warned by command to stay above 10,000 feet, because there was low-level activity in the area, but what was it? If it existed, it was 'in the vicinity'.
 
Candy-O said:
Shot by what? There was nothing else in the vicinity.
Click to expand...
The USS Louisville (SSN-724) was attached to the carrier group and doing live fire exercises in the area at the time of the tic tac event according to the Executive Summary [pp. 11-12] (which George Knapp claims was prepared by BAASS/AAWSAP). If there was a target balloon in the area I would guess it would be related to that. I wouldn't say it's the most likely explanation but I don't think it stretches credulity more than a physics-defying UAP.
 
An afterthought about what would or would not be 'detectable': we tend to assume (well, I do) that a fighter like the F-18 (in any variant) would be easily detectable on radar by another fighter, at least if it is within visible range. But is this correct? The F-18 is not usually described as a stealth fighter, but any modern fighter will be designed to reduce the risk of detection by an enemy, and according to public sources it has a much smaller radar signature than previous generation fighters:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_F/A-18E/F_Super_Hornet#Radar_signature_reduction_measures

If it had its active 'friend-or-foe' systems switched off, as it might in some exercises, can we be sure it would be detected? Details of the range of detectability would presumably be classified.
 
DavidB66 said:
If it had its active 'friend-or-foe' systems switched off, as it might in some exercises, can we be sure it would be detected? Details of the range of detectability would presumably be classified.
Click to expand...

I am not an expert on radar signatures, but I would be extremely surprised if they are able to make the plane invisible to the radars.
 
It's totally possible the instruments were all working as expected but the operators made some errant assumptions that meant the solution was not apparent at the time.
 
Ravi said:
I am not an expert on radar signatures, but I would be extremely surprised if they are able to make the plane invisible to the radars.
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Neither am I an expert, but surely the whole point of reducing the radar signature, a.k.a. radar cross section, is to reduce the likelihood that the plane is detected by an enemy. This does not necessarily mean making it completely invisible to radar. A plane is a big lump of metal, and there is probably always some distance at which a sufficiently sensitive radar will detect it. But reducing its radar signature may either reduce the probability of detection at any given range, i.e. the proportion of cases in which it will be detected, or reduce the range at which there is a given probability of detection. For example, purely hypothetically, if the engines are carried on pylons, as in a B52, the plane might be detected by a given radar system at 20 miles 90% of the time, while if the same engines were embedded in the wings, as in an Avro Vulcan, it might be detectable at 20 miles only 50% of the time, or detectable 90% of the time only at a distance of 10 miles or less. I mention the Vulcan because it is sometimes described as an 'accidental' stealth bomber which just happened to have a relatively small radar profile: according to this article,

The Vulcan could virtually vanish from the radar screen at some angles, despite the fact that it was designed long before such factors were taken into account
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source:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HVJyHCXAOtsC&pg=PA566&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

Perhaps the Vulcan was reverse-engineered from a captured UFO: after all, just look at the name!

There is a general Wiki article on radar cross section here, which itemises the various ways of reducing it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_cross_section

I note the remark that

RCS data for current military aircraft is mostly highly classified
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This presumably still applies to F-18s, so we are unlikely to find a public source to tell us, for example, whether Dietrich's plane at 20,000 would certainly have detected Kurth's plane at 10,000 feet.
 
@DavidB66

Indeed, smaller RCS, but not invisible. As you quoted, the viewing angles certainly matter.
Just saying that a planes like a F18 cannot just go undetected in these training fields.
 
DavidB66 said:
Perhaps the Vulcan was reverse-engineered from a captured UFO: after all, just look at the name!
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The name denotes the Roman god of fire, volcanoes are named after him. The Avro Vulcan predates Mr. Spock by over a decade.
 
MonkeeSage said:
Alex Dietrich was just on the Merged podcast with Ryan Graves earlier today, haven't had a chance to watch ye
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Dietrich's account of the tic-tac event is mainly between 18:00 and 30:00 in the video. Perhaps more interesting for what it doesn't mention than what it does. For example, no mention of the object ping-ponging around. On the question of timing she implies that she lost sight of the object before Fravor did, because she was too concentrated on flying her plane. She has said similar things before, but it leaves open the question how much of Fravor's account she is actually in a position to corroborate. On the way the object left the scene, she says both that it disappeared and that it zipped away. Graves doesn't press her to elaborate.
 
DavidB66 said:
Perhaps more interesting for what it doesn't mention than what it does.
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I'm going to comment mostly in case Ms. Dietrich reads this thread. I also find interesting what she doesnt mention, but not in terms of her own ufo sighting. She mentions at the end (around 55 mins?) that people shouldnt assume what was seen on the east coast is necessarily the thing they saw in 2014. But i've never heard her say that what was seen on the FLIR by the later crew, wasnt necessarily the thing she and Fravor saw.

As far as both she and Graves pondering why they aren't taken more seriously (or why skeptic reporters get angry).. it's because you are both purposefully associating yourself with people who are pushing extraterrestrials. That's not a critical thinking conclusion. Yes Fravor was 'sober' in the hearing, but all his interviews on Fox news etc he is pushing extraterrestrials. so when she sits next to Fravor to verify some of his account and does NOT contradict him ever! she is in essence supporting his extraterrestrial conclusion.

We already had Project Blue book. and no, we dont need to spend more tax payer money chasing little green men. She's trying to play both sides of the field because she doesnt want to upset anyone. and i get that, she wants to support her commander Fravor.. fine. But dont act like youre all confused people react to you the way they do. They react to you, Ms. Dietrich, the way you do because you are supporting the extraterrestrial narrative. At least that is the way you are CHOOSING to come across by the company you keep and what you do not push back against.

You are likely judging me and my comments by the people i am choosing to associate with here on MB. People who are often disrespectful, mocking, obsessive (<i agree with you they are oddly obsessive at times :) ). But if you throw me in the same boat with those types of people i am not going to ponder on a webcast "WHY" you would assume those same things about me.


Basically y'all screwed up by associating yourself with known popular ETUFO [extraterrestrial ufo] heads. Leslie Keane, Blumenthal, George Knapp, Coulthart, Elizondo, Corbell who set up the whole hearing in Congress, and yes unfortunately even Fravor.

Why didn't they go to a normal reporter if this stuff was real and important in anyway?? You are part of the extraterrestrial community, Ms. Dietrich...by choice. Just like i am part of a rather pompous, disrespectful community here on MB. I get you are trying to be a mediator ..as that's what i'm trying to do.. but the public doesn't see either of us that way. period. So please drop the confusion bit, it doesnt suit you.
 
I came across this experiment that relates to the 10 seconds or 5 minutes debate.
THE UNIDENTIFIED WITNESS - UFO WITNESS PSYCHOLOGY RESULTS
Dr. Alexander Keul and Ken Phillips
BUFORA bulletin 21 May 1986

A Simulated UFO Sighting​


To paraphrase the experiment: An image of a structured luminous UFO is shown for a fixed time under one minute. The volunteers are asked observe closely and then sketch what they saw and give a duration estimate.

The results show a divergence in duration estimate around plus or minus 5 seconds. While these results are not surprising they further support the claim that the difference between 10 seconds to 5 minutes is a remarkable outlier.

Also of note: In addition the observation that half of the sketchers drew the object in “incorrect” spatial perspective.

“Major structures of the UFO stimulus are correctly reproduced by a maximum of 50 to 60 percent of the ‘witnesses’ and distorted or forgotten by the rest.”
Click to expand...

I’d be interested to know if there are other more contemporary studies (perhaps by Loftus?) that deal with perceived duration of events. This 1986 study - although quite old now - is interesting because it specifically asks participants to recall the duration of a (simulated) UFO sighting rather than say a car crash or street robbery.

Source: [Beginning on p. 23] https://bufora.org.uk/documents/BUFORABulletinNo.21May1986.pdf
 
Mendel said:
Shockwave from the aircraft.
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Do you have any evidence to show that a jet facing a balloon from several thousand feet away would cause a "shockwave" that would destroy it?

Here a jet passes very close to a weather balloon, and as one would assume, no balloon destroying shockwave to be seen.

WBal.jpg


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cla34QzgbKc


And Fravor clearly states that he was approaching it, and it was approaching him, and then when he was about 1/2 mile away when it "shot off" Just invoking the word "shockwave" without any context does not really add much to a solution. You might as well say "It exploded because of an explosive charge device in the balloon"


Source: https://youtu.be/aB8zcAttP1E?feature=shared&t=4899

(relevant section is from around 1:22:00 onward.)

A more plausible explanation than a ping ponging large white balloon which has no inertia that then explodes from a shockwave from an approaching plane 1/2 mile away would be that the pilots are not being truthful. Isn't that what Occam's Razor would imply?

TBH I don't think he or Deitrich is lying, but none of the prosaic explanations I've seen pass the BS meter for me, especially in the greater context of all the events from that day. That is why this goes into the "unexplained" category for the time being for me.

It's ok to admit we don't have enough information to pass judgement.
 
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MonkeeSage said:
The USS Louisville (SSN-724) was attached to the carrier group and doing live fire exercises in the area at the time of the tic tac event according to the Executive Summary [pp. 11-12] (which George Knapp claims was prepared by BAASS/AAWSAP). If there was a target balloon in the area I would guess it would be related to that. I wouldn't say it's the most likely explanation but I don't think it stretches credulity more than a physics-defying UAP.
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true.. and the report says (as I also stated)

The former commander of the USSLouisville, CAPT confirmed that there was no anomalous underseaactivity during this period. There was a live fire exercise conducted by the USSLouisville during the period of and in the vicinity of the AAV sightings; however,. theweapon in use did not match the flight profile or visible characteristics of the AA V.Additionally any live tire would have been coordinated. throughout the cs-G and allair traffic would have been well aware of the launch and operation of the weaponsystem. Aircraft would not have been vectored for the intercept of a US Weapon inflight
 
Candy-O said:
You might as well say "It exploded because of an explosive charge device in the balloon"
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The Chinese spy balloon had a self-destruct mechanism.

Article:
The balloon had a self-destruct mechanism that could have been activated remotely by China, but the officials said it’s not clear if that didn’t happen because the mechanism malfunctioned or because China decided not to trigger it.
 
Candy-O said:
Do you have any evidence to show that a jet facing a balloon from several thousand feet away would cause a "shockwave" that would destroy it?
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Jet causing a shockwave? Common knowledge, I hope.
Even boats have a bow wave.
The balloon would have to be close to bursting already, and the local excess pressure from the wave should do it.

If it's a spy balloon with an explosive self-destruct device, it might have reacted to Fravor's radar?
 
Candy-O said:
true.. and the report says (as I also stated)

The former commander of the USSLouisville, CAPT confirmed that there was no anomalous underseaactivity during this period. There was a live fire exercise conducted by the USSLouisville during the period of and in the vicinity of the AAV sightings; however,. theweapon in use did not match the flight profile or visible characteristics of the AA V.Additionally any live tire would have been coordinated. throughout the cs-G and allair traffic would have been well aware of the launch and operation of the weaponsystem. Aircraft would not have been vectored for the intercept of a US Weapon inflight
Click to expand...
The weapon itself not matching the characteristics is less relevant if they just saw something related to the test but not the weapon itself (e.g., a target balloon or a drone). The statement that all air traffic would have been aware of the Louisville's weapons testing seems incorrect given that Fravor and Dietrich apparently were not aware of it. Being vectored to false radar returns and accidentally seeing whatever Louisville was doing is also a different scenario than being vectored specifically to intercept whatever weapon Louisville was testing.
 
MonkeeSage said:
The weapon itself not matching the characteristics is less relevant if they just saw something related to the test but not the weapon itself (e.g., a target balloon or a drone).
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Fair point.
MonkeeSage said:
The statement that all air traffic would have been aware of the Louisville's weapons testing seems incorrect given that Fravor and Dietrich apparently were not aware of it. Being vectored to false radar returns and accidentally seeing whatever Louisville was doing is also a different scenario than being vectored specifically to intercept whatever weapon Louisville was testing.
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Air traffic control on the Nimitz should've been aware (but mistakes happen).
 
Eyewitness testimony is unreliable.

Memory is unreliable.

There is zero evidence of extraordinary physics breaking crafts existing anywhere in the universe.

And yet a certain ilk leans fully into the idea that the eyewitnesses were correct, that their memory is accurate, and that extraordinary physics breaking crafts are the most likely answer. The problem isn't just the extremes but anywhere in the middle of this we're still looking at physics breaking crafts without any evidence that's possible, much less probable.
 
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